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Shazam-branded label on the way thanks to Warner Music Group deal

Shazam has announced a partnership with Warner Music Group (WMG) that will herald a new Shazam-branded label, as well as a collaboration on marketing efforts.

This is a big move for Shazam, which is better-known for its cross-platform music-tagging app that automatically recognizes what music is playing in the background. The new Shazam label imprint will primarily be used for unearthing and developing unsigned artists, and will tap WMG’s existing A&R reach with Shazam’s fan activity data.

For WMG, this tie-up gives them a powerful promotional channel with better access to fans who ‘Shazamed’ their music. Warner’s slew of labels, which include Asylum, Atlantic, Big Beat, Elektra, Parlophone, Warner Bros., Warner Classics, among others, will receive “enhanced deep data” around fan behavior pertaining to its current artists, and will use this to launch tailored promotional campaigns. Shazam users, in return, will gain access to exclusive content.

Shazam counts around 420 million users across 200 countries, and it’s obvious why Warner would want to tap its data banks. But for Shazam to launch its own label imprint, using tagging-data to establish popular up-and-coming artists, this is a landmark move. Indeed, we’ve previously questioned whether Spotify, Rdio and others should follow Netflix’ lead by launching their own labels for exclusive music, but there are a range of barriers with that – namely cost and scalability.

By partnering with WMG, Shazam has found a shortcut to doing just that, however, and it will be interesting to see the fruits of this partnership.